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Sort of... She entered University early and has accelerated through the classes. She's still just 19, but should finish her first Bachelor's Degree a few months past her 20th B-day. Her 2nd Bachelors should hopefully be done shortly afterward. She's a dual major of Computer Graphics and Mechanical Engineering. But it has been 6 years since her first joining the forums.
I don't think she ever entered the "new users" contests, just the Freepository Challenges. But no, she's definitely done "for pay" professional work. :)
Kendall
There are indeed many more complicated programs, and they also need more than a single manual. In fact, I think you'll find that none of them has published a "single" manual in quite some time. Autodesk's online manuals for Maya and 3DS Max are filled with inaccurate and outdated information that is constantly being found by users and updated by Autodesk. This is different from DAZ only in that DAZ doesn't have legacy text available that they've modified year-after-year.
Studio is "easy to use" compared to the rest of the market. I don't dispute that the documentation is lacking, only that some of those in this thread are overlooking that there is a lot of "background knowledge" that is assumed to be known by ANY 3D software suite. Lighting techniques, lighting terminology, framing techniques, semantics of shading, and the like. I see complaints about light and camera settings in this thread, and when told that those use "industry standard" nomenclature I see followup complaints of "I shouldn't have to know that". Unfortunately... yes you should -- if you intend to make images beyond the base presets given.
Studio at least gives defaults that will provide a meaningful image for rendering within a few clicks. You *won't* get that in the other programs. Maybe someone will make a comprehensive manual or video series -- but they probably won't be cheap. Dreamlight sells many tutorial packages. How many in this thread have purchased any of them *AND* studied them?
Kendall
Thanks, I'll look into it. Colm has some great video tutorials and I got his light studio products which I think will teach me a lot while experimenting. But I want to know more than just lighting. I want to use the Lipsync feature (if that still exists) and basically EVERYTHING in the menus. What I would love is a comprehensive manual with screenshots of everything Daz is capable of, read it in bed before sleep and spark ideas of what I can do in Daz that I couldn't in Poser and I think there are many things besides Iray, but I don't know what they all are! I would actually like to create my own content and various other things that go beyond creating pinups. I was kind of joking in my OP. Been doing pinups for years in Poser and don't need Daz for that. I'm doing a graphic novel that I want to make more realistic than most comics, and still haven't decided if I want to do in Poser or Daz, with V4 or G3.... Hoping for GenX for G3 to transfer my character morphs but I've already tried to recreate them just by sight. But if I can't use Daz properly, it will be more time efficient to use Poser. At first I hated DS, the UI was driving me crazy, but now I'm liking it and Colm's cameras take care of not having a face camera although I'd still like to figure out how to get that permanently in the UI, rather than in sub menus, as well as hand cameras. Anyway, I would just like to know everything that's POSSIBLE whether I use it or not, I may need it someday and remember that Daz can do it.
We need DAZ to set up on their servers a "Community Wiki" that we could edit and contribute to. I think such a resource would soon become the default repository of information on the application, and they'd not have to spend a lot of resources on it. Seems like it would be a win-win scenario.
And if not DAZ, maybe someone with some spare server space could donate it and set up the wiki for us.......
That is a GREAT idea!!!!
Hmm, has anyone told you what happened to the freebie wiki that was set up to replace the lists that are so prevalent over in the freebie forum.. It was a good job that the person/people setting it up had backups of the info. Some people take adding to or subtracting from a public wiki to mean something completely different than the original intent.
Oh, I'm not saying it should be open to EVERYONE. Forum login required, possibly a minimum age to edit/add pages. And of course, some basic oversight.....And proper wiki software allows for edits to be reverted (much like source-control software) so that if someone does get in and remove a bunch of pages maliciously, all an admin has to do is go and revert all their last edits, then lock their editing access out.
Looks like they've added stuff. It's not complete but it's better than it was when many were griping. You will still have to apply yourself.
Okay yeah I absolutely agree with everything you're saying here.
Also in fairness when I complained that they were making really useful youtube videos highlighting various features but not actually telling anyone, they did highlight them in a sale shortly after. I'd just like to see it a bit more centralised and organised. There is a lot of information out there (and a lot of it by Daz) but getting to it or knowing it even exists to look for is still quite the game of chance.
...if it weren't so glacially slow (I have to render in CPU mode on a first generation i7 which does not support the "speed boost") and R4 didn't have bug issues, I'd still be using it.
I always liked the auto film settings. In Iray I have to fake it through adjusting saturation and white point values.
...but for people like myself who suffers from crippling arthritis that makes it difficult to hold a brush or pencil frimly to get a proper stroke or line, CG is an alternative if I wish to continue with my main creative pursuit. I can understand blocking lighting as I worked both in stage design/lighting and photography. However when you get down to the nit picky details of multiple skin layer values for SSS or hair that is where you begin to lose me. Yes it was far less "technical" to create the look of SSS for skin, shadow softness, or refraction for glass or water with more traditional media, but there has to me some kind of "middle ground" for CG work that doesn't take it into such minute detail one spends more time sweating that than with actually creating a scene.
As I and others mentioned, it would be nice to have a handbook along the lines of a Daz Studio or Iray for Dummies. It would be so much more helpful than hunting down video tutorials on Youtube as all the basic information would be there in one nice package rather than scattered all over the interwebs. Another nice feature of a print rather than video learning tool is you can have it open to the topic at hand while also working on a project as well as take it with you to read while riding the bus to work, having lunch, sitting at the coffee shop etc.
Indeed. A good place to start is the DS Changelogs that are released in the Daz Studio Forum area. New features and changes are noted in the change notes that are inside the log files.
Kendall
I have copies of Modo, zbrush, cinema4D, 3DCoat.. all professional tools; none came with a manual. Professional users have to rely on wikis and 3rd party references and tutorials to learn those programs. I simply would not expect DAZ to produce a manual when these programs that start at $800 don't. A manual may show you what commands are, but they will never give you decent "how-to".. that's where your online references from 3rd parties and tips from forums come from unfortuantely.
...but for some of the Pro apps, you can get training in at a 2 or 4 year college or trade school (there are even academic versions available).
For Daz, Carrara, Vue, or Poser, it's "tough luck kid, you're on your own". If we could have a Blender for Dummies book, why not one for Daz Studio, Carrara, or Iray?
http://modo.docs.thefoundry.co.uk/modo/801/help/index.html - modo
http://docs.pixologic.com/ - zbrush
http://www.maxon.net/support/documentation.html - cinema4d (I haven't looked through this one but it's kinda huge)
http://3d-coat.com/manual/ - 3dcoat
Some of them are better than others, but all of them are much more comprehensive than anything Studio offers (and I've spent way more than $800 here.) In terms of free products, Blender and Unity both have manuals and guides that make even the paid ones above look not great (and they are already more than fine to me.) They may not be the picture with baby's first words type that some people want but they clearly lay out all of the features in relatively layman terms.
Maybe the misunderstanding among everyone here seems to be due to symantics and definitions. When I use the word "manual" I don't necessarily mean an official book that comes with a product, but rather any manual that breaks down aspects of how the program works. Nor I am referring to an enormous "bible" attempting to outline EVERY thing the program does, but rather books on aspects of it. Example: Iray is fairly complicated, then it would be nice to be able to buy a book on Daz Iray that breaks it down. It's not that complicated a idea, and you see it implemented with most all other software that has as many people fiddling around with it as Daz does ( except maybe Vocaloid software). It doesn't have to be made by Daz, but I simply would like to have one (both Lightwave and Max do have officially endorsed manuals out there by the way). You mentioned Z-brush doesn't have a manual, but if you go to Amazon you can find several books on sculpting with Z-brush. There are books for Cinema 4D aimed at various levels of expertise as well. Obviously somebody realized the need for such publications eventhough we're talking about "professional software programs".
And for the record, you don't have to be a professional to use "professional" software. I know several people who own Cinema 4D and other programs, didn't go to school, don't work at Disney, or are very good at these programs which they learned how to use from BOOKS available at BOOKSTORES.
In fact I don't even see the need to separate Daz3d from other software out there "professional" or not when it comes to having clear documentation on how to use it. How did you guys out there learn to use Maya, Z-brush, or Cinema 4D anyway? Did you just decide to buy them and then spent the next 20 years methodically clicking sliders until you finally figured out what everything did? Or maybe everybody here is a savant, and automatically understood SSS settings by intuition. Damn guys come on, Photo Shop isn't as complicated as most 3d programs and there are dozens of books as well as magazines on simply how to use it.
What Daz needs is the equivalent of an Andrew Kramer, who made a program like After-Effects accessible to anybody who wanted to use it regardless of what skill level they were at.
Coming from the world of filmmaking, what I think is going on here is very much what you see going on in the film world with the democratization of filmmaking.
Filmmaking used to be a very elite and expensive endeavor that only a few people could afford, and people who were in the industry were very close to the vest about many aspects of the process. As the tools for it became affordable, and the quality of those products at the prosumer and consumer levels began to equal that of people using very high end gear, you started to see people begin to try and create a divide between "non-professionals" and "professionals" in the industry. Suddenly no matter how many films like Tangerine got made with an Iphone, you were still relagated to the minor leagues and not taken seriously if you got your film made below a certain price point.
It seems that some people look at Daz software and Daz digital artists in the same way. Even though you see a few Daz artists whose work probably rivals that of people using "professional" 3D programs, they will always get that back handed compliment, "Oh that looks good for Daz, though" the same as you hear people say of a very well made film, "Oh that looks good for low budget" eventhough there is no discernable difference in quality evident at all. There will always be some reason brought up as to why this person is able to create spectacular work and you can't even though you're using the same tools which never seems to entail telling you what you need to study. It's just that the ability to learn and master a camera costing maybe a thousand dollars and then produce work that can stand along side a camera costing 10K makes some people feel a certain kind of way, and they don't want people being able to master a "cheap" camera to that extent and certainly don't want the learning curve to that mastery to be any less steep.
And all of those are online references, and still won't give you the how-to I mentioned in my post.
I mean they all show what everything does in easy to understand language ... that's a manual in my book (and something that becomes very sketchy for Daz beyond the most basic settings.)
What more do people want? A tutorial for every button? So long as I can easily look up any button/setting via a logically organised manner and have it written in normal language, that's enough for me to figure things out. There are actually some really good pages in the Daz reference (some about Iray too!) but I only know they exist because I was linked directly to them. Trying to actually navigate (or use the search function, haha) I can never seem to find anything on it beyond the getting started guide.
If you want to see a real disaster, check out the Carrara 8.5 manual.
FIRSTLY:
Many of the "buttons" are not fully documented, sometimes only to the extent of acknowleding the button's existence with no real explanation as to how to use it. A prime example is the NVIDIA Iray documention. The TONE MAPPING section is excellent! It explains, for example, quite succinctly what the shutter speed option is:
Shutter Speed (1/x) - Controls the duration, in fractions of a second, that the “shutter” is open; e.g., the value 100 means that the “shutter” is open for 1/100th of a second. The higher this value, the greater the exposure1).
Go to the FILTERING section of the NVIDIA Iray documention, however, and you get what is too often typical for DAZ documenation: not much that is useful. Either the documentation is so barebones as to be useless or it's hopelessly out of date. (Or, tragically, you find yourself in some defunct "artzone" section for prior versions of DAZ where the suporting graphics are no longer even included - making it impossible to glean very much at all from the old info). Click on a link like "Bloom Filter Enable" in the FILTERING section of the NVIDIA Iray documention and you're taken to a "Page Not Found" page or a "You Don't Have Access" page. That happens way too often.
So then one is left to google and trawl the forums for how to use so many parts of DAZ, which can take hours of wading through winding discussions where many times you find conflicting or overly complicated answers to your questions. There are whole components of DAZ I've never tried to use or experiment with - from shader mixers to animation to morph loaders. I have my hands full with those sections I do use and am still trying to get a handle on, because like nelsonsmith, I Like to know what a program offers and how it works so I can use it efficiently and get the most out of for the time I spend devoted to mastering it. I've taught myself everything from Photoshop to HTML, Javascript, CSS1-3, Applescript, Second Life, on through how to design databases in MySQL, creating complex spreadsheets in Excel, designing fonts and on and on - all because these applications are well documented.
which leads me to my next point...
SECONDLY: to all the people who like to point out that DAZ is free and we sholdn't expect much in the way of a manual I must simply gaffaw. DAZ is free because that's it's business model. Free software yes but the cost is still there to bear through purchases made through the DAZ Shop - an income stream on which DAZ very much depends. Before begining this post I added up the amount of cash I've paid out to DAZ since starting to use their excellent software a few years ago. It's not a small sum. Seventeem hundred pus dollars for over 40 items. I think most people would agree, for that kind of dough one might antipate better supporting documantation. My time IS worth something and it can be a heavy price to pay having to spend so many endless, and often fruitless hours, figuring out how to get things done in DAZ, things you know that CAN BE DONE in DAZ - if you only knew how.
Thats my two cents. Thank you.
I totally agree - it's pathetic that there still is no manual for DAZ Studio. I am brand new to the Iray stuff since I did not use it at all in 4.8. Now trying to find info on how to change just part of a figure's material, for example, a space helmet that has several materials assigned to it, but I only want to use a Iray material for the glass visor. Is that even possible? I just bought Digital Women II: A Guide to DAZ Studio 4.8 Iradium over at Amamzon for $4. Not bad info, but not great. Did not answer how to apply Iray materials except for the uber base. Sigh...
You apply Iray shaders the same way you apply 3Delight shaders -- select the item in the Scene pane AND the surfaces you want to apply the shader to in the Surfaces pane.
I'll try again - but so far it does nothing.
What exactly are you doing, and what happens when you render?
I selected the helmet visor and double-clicked on the glass Iray material. The render did not change - it still has the original material. I may not have selected the surface though. Still stuck at work, so will try tonight and check the surfaces tab too.
I want to know it all too. I have spent literally thousands on product here and I have been here less than a year. This is a serious hobby for me. I have pages and pages and pages of notes, a binder notebook full of readme's and directions for products, I am MORE than willing to put the time and effort into learning. But I need something that is dummed down to a level that I can understand. Put the technical stuff into laymans terms so I don't have to spend an hour on google looking up term I've never heard off. And just to complicate matters for myself. I want to learn both Iray and 3delight....
I too started out drawing, then sculpting and now music, but I really got sucked into the poser thing (In my late thirties) and geek-out on all the rendering, normal maps and Ambient Occlusion (I actually made my own AO by positioning 64 spot lights in a geo pattern and enabling all soft shadow maps, took hours to render, but it came out great, this was before ambient occlusion was even a thing!)
I remember when I lost my job in Seattle and was pretty much homeless, (Which was not too bad as Seattle has excellent resources!) Anyway I would spend my days drinking coffee and drawing for hours in cafes all across the city...Lugging around all that paper/drawings was a bit of a pain though!...Oh yeah, this is when Seattle had the dot com crash that rendered most people jobless, which is why I ended up movintg eventually.
There are too few video tutorials that actually get to the point as most drone on and on and take several videos to explain a few steps The best video tuts are from Sickleyield and Mec4D!
Otherwise, I would love to read about these features but this will not happen, I am glad to see them making video tutorials but would rather have them use annotations instead of the constant droning.
Sadly, so many things these days just use video tutorials rather than actually write things out (I assume because monetising ads.) I've seen things like news updates for a game that link a ten minute video that could have been summarised into a couple of short text notes. It's not really a Daz problem - it's everywhere.
I don't even want to check and see how much I've spent on Daz products. My product library being over 1000 is a scary enough sign for me already.
It's a lot easier to make a video tutorial these days, I totally get the overexplained, drawn out simple ones. It takes quite a bit of time to write, proof, image/crop and organize into a final tutorial. When it comes to showing a lot of steps and explaining the though process, videos tend to be the more efficient route, like it or not. :) I used to hate watching the things, but now I find I prefer them, but it largely depends on the presenter and how easily I can scan through the video. But there's still nothing like a well written documentation I can keep referring to, or easily get to the info I need.
For D|S's documentation, or lack thereof, they make their money selling assets and the program doesn't see large scale professional use like an Autodesk product does. It's basically a niche, and no worry of a bunch of studios jumping ship and slowing the cash flow.
It's unfortunate, but a poorly produced video is like a poorly written manual. I'm still extremely grateful to the people that take the time and effort to make them anyway. It's a big part of how I'm able to learn stuff I would struggle even more with otherwise.